Marisa Manchado

María Luisa Manchado Torres was born in Madrid on 7 July 1956. Her mother, Nieves Torres Serrano (1918 to 2013), born in Venturada, had worked in domestic service from the age of 12 and joined the Unified Socialist Youth (JSU) during the Spanish Civil War. Arrested on 15 May 1939, she was tried in the same case as the Trece Rosas, sentenced to death and then had the sentence commuted to 30 years. She was freed in 1954 after about 16 years in Ventas, Durango, Amorebieta, Saturrarán and Segovia prisons, and married Arturo Manchado Garvía, whom she had met through prison. The family settled in the Prosperidad neighbourhood of Chamartín, where Nieves later helped build the local residents' movement. In 2018 Madrid named the Espacio de Igualdad Nieves Torres in Chamartín after her, and Marisa took part in the inauguration. Her brother, Arturo Manchado, is an astrophysicist living in the Canary Islands.

Manchado studied at the Colegio Estilo in Madrid and entered the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid at about 20. She studied composition with Carmelo Bernaola and finished with an end of degree honour mention (1983) in the class of Antón García Abril. She also worked with Luis de Pablo, with Horacio Vaggione at Université Paris VIII (Maîtrise and DEA in music sciences and computer assisted composition), and with Franco Donatoni and Brian Ferneyhough at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, and attended classes by Olivier Messiaen. Scholarships included the Darmstadt summer courses (1982), the Manuel de Falla courses in Granada (1982 and 1984), EMS Stockholm (1990), the Spanish Ministry of Education (1990 and 1995), the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome (1995 to 1996) and the Centre Acanthes (1995 and 1999). She held a degree in psychology from the Complutense University and Comillas Pontifical University, trained as a Gestalt therapist, and in 2022 completed a PhD in musicology at the Complutense University, graded sobresaliente cum laude, on the LIEM electronic music laboratory of the CDMC.

Manchado's catalogue exceeds 150 works across pedagogical, chamber, vocal, symphonic, operatic and electroacoustic music. Early in her career she also wrote pop music and worked for years with theatre groups, including the company Tábano. Her first opera, El cristal de agua fría, on a libretto by Rosa Montero, was commissioned by the CDMC for the 1993 to 1994 season. Escenas de la vida cotidiana, directed by Gregorio Esteban, premiered at the Teatro de La Abadía during the Madrid Autumn Festival in 1997. In 2002 the Auditorio Nacional hosted a monographic concert of her music with new CDMC commissions. In 2006 she composed music for Dreyer's film La pasión de Juana de Arco for the Teatro de la Zarzuela and the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid. Her Concierto para fagot y orquesta, Notas para la paz, commissioned by the Spanish National Orchestra, premiered on 27 April 2012 with Enrique Abargues and conductor Kazushi Ono. Later premieres included El árbol rosa for choir, orchestra and soprano on texts by Emilia Pardo Bazán (ORCAM, 16 September 2021) and La Cité des dames for female choir and piano after Christine de Pizan (National Auditorium, 13 March 2023). Her third opera, La Regenta, with a libretto by Amelia Valcárcel, premiered in October 2023 at the Naves del Español in Matadero in a Teatro Real and Teatro Español co-production, and was revived at the Teatro Campoamor in Oviedo in April 2025. The Spanish National Orchestra premiered its orchestral suite Un mar de hielo on 10 to 12 April 2026. She was working on a fourth opera, Medea.

From 1994 Manchado taught at the Teresa Berganza Professional Conservatory of Music in Madrid, where she served as deputy principal for about 14 years until 2017. She was an associate professor in the Faculty of Education of the Autonomous University of Madrid from 2001 to 2004. From 2007 to 2008 she was deputy director general of Music and Dance at INAEM, part of the Ministry of Culture. In 1982 and 1983 she presented Mujeres en la música on RNE Radio 2, now Radio Clásica.

Manchado was a committed feminist who researched and promoted the work of women composers throughout her life. She compiled Música y mujeres: género y poder (Horas y horas, 1998; new edition Ménades, 2019), presented as the first book in Spain to link musical research with feminist theory, and wrote Mis queridas genias: compositoras que me acompañan e inspiran (Huso, 2023). She was a historic founding member of the Asociación Mujeres en la Música and a member of Clásicas y Modernas. Musically, she described herself as a child of modernity who loved borders, mixture and indeterminacy, and credited her teacher Carmelo Bernaola with giving her the freedom to compose there.

Manchado lived in Madrid. She had an adopted son. Press reports after the crash said his father had already died. Her brother Arturo Manchado, an astrophysicist, provided DNA samples to help forensic teams identify her. Friends and colleagues described her as affable, communicative and warm.

Premio Nacional de Música, composition category (2024), for La Regenta. Nominated for best world premiere at the International Opera Awards (2024) for La Regenta. Comuarte Ibero-American Music Award (2007). Daniel Montorio National Award (1995). Second prize, 10th Cristóbal Halffter Organ Composition Competition (1989). End of degree honour mention in composition, Madrid Royal Conservatory (1983). SGAE Foundation prize for best doctoral thesis for her study of the LIEM laboratory.

Manchado leaves a catalogue of more than 150 works and three operas, and is remembered as one of the central figures of Spanish contemporary music and as a pioneer of gender studies in Spanish musicology. Her death in the Urda train crash shocked Spain's musical community: the Teatro Real company held a minute's silence, the SGAE Foundation postponed events during the three days of official mourning, and associations such as Mujeres en la Música and Clásicas y Modernas paid tribute.

On 28 October 2026 Manchado was travelling in carriage 6 of AVE train 2080, which left Madrid Atocha at 08:00 for Seville. She was due at midday at the meeting Música para el presente: Diálogos con la obra de la compositora Marisa Manchado, organised by the University of Seville's Faculty of Education. At about 08:54 the AVE collided with the rear of a stationary Iryo train between Los Yébenes and Urda, in the province of Toledo, killing at least 69 people. The Asociación Mujeres en la Música reported her missing on 29 October. Her body was identified among the victims on the night of Friday 30 October 2026. She was 70. Funeral and burial arrangements had not been made public at the time of writing.